The “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign began as a 1950s roadside advertisement and evolved into one of the world’s most recognizable city icons. Today, it stands as both a mid‑century design landmark and a beloved symbol of Las Vegas’ identity.
Birth of an Icon in 1959
In the late 1950s, Las Vegas tourism was booming, and local leaders wanted a bold gateway to greet motorists driving in from California along Highway 91, now the Las Vegas Strip. The concept was to create a flashy roadside marker that captured the city’s glamour, excitement, and promise of entertainment.
Local salesman Ted Rogich approached Western Neon, a Las Vegas sign company, with the idea for a distinctive welcome sign that could be sold to Clark County and placed at the southern approach to the city. Clark County funded the project in May 1959, and Western Neon soon built and erected the sign just outside the city limits, where it would be impossible for drivers to miss.
Image credit: Thomas Wolf, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Betty Willis and the Design
Commercial artist Betty Willis, who had grown up in Nevada and worked in the city’s fast‑growing sign industry, was tasked with designing the new welcome sign while employed at Western Neon. Willis studied other Las Vegas marquees and Southern California roadside signs, aiming for something familiar yet unique that captured the exuberant spirit of the Strip.
Willis created the now‑famous diamond‑shaped sign framed by yellow incandescent bulbs, topped with a red starburst and anchored by graceful blue poles. The word “Welcome” appears on individual white circles meant to evoke silver dollars, a nod to Nevada’s “Silver State” nickname and the clatter of coins in casino slot machines, while the phrase “to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada” uses dramatic fonts typical of mid‑century neon design.
Googie Style and Mid‑Century Road Culture
The sign is widely recognized as a classic example of Googie architecture, a mid‑century style inspired by car culture, space‑age optimism, and the rise of roadside attractions. Googie design emphasized bold geometric shapes, starbursts, exaggerated angles, and bright neon meant to catch the eye of drivers speeding past at highway speeds, all features on full display in the Las Vegas sign.
At the time, Las Vegas and other Western cities were competing to stand out along growing highway networks, leading to a kind of “neon arms race,” with each new sign trying to be bigger, brighter, and more extravagant than the last. The Welcome sign fit directly into this culture, functioning as a glowing promise of entertainment just ahead for anyone crossing the desert into town.
From Roadside Marker to City Symbol
When it first went up, the sign technically stood in unincorporated Clark County, not within the formal city limits, and served purely as a highway gateway rather than an official municipal marker. Even so, photographs and postcards from the 1960s and 1970s show the sign steadily becoming an unofficial logo for Las Vegas tourism, appearing in travel ads, brochures, and news features about the city.
Over time, the sign’s image spread around the world, eventually appearing on T‑shirts, souvenirs, and even Nevada license plates that raised funds for Las Vegas Centennial projects in the early 2000s. Despite its fame, Willis never trademarked the design, reportedly viewing it as a gift to the city rather than a private property asset, which helped the image circulate widely in popular culture.
Preservation, Access, and Historic Recognition
For decades, the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign stood in the highway median with no safe way for pedestrians to visit, so tourists often parked on the shoulder and dodged traffic for a quick photo. In 2008, Clark County added dedicated parking spaces and a pedestrian island around the sign, transforming it into an officially accessible attraction and dramatically increasing daily visitors.
The cultural importance of the landmark was formally recognized in 2009, when it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places for its design significance and role in Las Vegas history. The sign has also become a focal point for public gatherings and memorials, serving, for example, as a spontaneous remembrance site after the Route 91 Harvest Festival tragedy in 2017, highlighting its emotional significance to residents and visitors alike.
The Sign’s Legacy Today
Today, the “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign remains one of the city’s most photographed spots, often serving as the first stop for visitors arriving from the south and a de facto ritual of entering Las Vegas. It operates not just as a piece of advertising, but as a nostalgic time capsule of mid‑century America and the era when neon and the open road defined the city’s image.
Betty Willis continued working in design and lived in Nevada until her death in 2015, long after her creation had become an international icon that helped define how the world visualizes Las Vegas. More than six decades after its installation, the sign still glows nightly at the southern end of the Strip, welcoming generations of travelers with the same promise of excitement that inspired its design in 1959.